


Relics

by darkly_ironic



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Community: comment_fic, Episode Related, Episode: s07e17 Born Again Identity, Ficlet, Introspection, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-04
Updated: 2012-04-04
Packaged: 2017-11-03 01:34:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 272
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/375600
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darkly_ironic/pseuds/darkly_ironic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>SPOILERS FOR 7.17. Dean doesn't really know why he kept the coat.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Relics

**Author's Note:**

> Written for nevcolleil's prompt on comment_fic.

Dean isn’t quite sure why he’s hung onto Cas’s coat for this long, shifting it from trunk to trunk, just one more thing that takes up precious space. There’s nothing left of the angel in it. It’s torn and bloodstained, and it doesn’t even smell like Cas anymore, just brackish lake water and ozone. 

It’s comforting to have it close though, just like Dad’s journal, and Bobby’s flask. He’s lost so many people—friends, _family_ —over the years that the thought of giving up these little pieces feels like it’d be losing them all over again. 

So, he keeps the coat, not to remember Cas-the-God, or even Cas-the-Sheriff-of-Heaven, but the Cas who had Fallen trying to save the world, who’d stood by Dean even when things looked darkest, the Cas who’d smiled, just once or twice, at Dean, and sparked something inside him that felt oddly like peace.

***

Castiel’s died and come back so many times, and he remembers _every single one_. He remembers _everything_ , and most of all, he remembers Dean. He almost wishes he didn’t; it would be so much easier that way.

He doesn’t know what he’s done to deserve these second—third, fourth—chances, but he has to try and make things right. He can live with pain, but living without forgiveness is something else entirely. 

Dean hates him now, he’d said as much out loud, for what he did to Sam, for what he did to all of them, and Castiel doesn’t blame him. Still, as he shrugs on the remains of his old overcoat, the fabric still warm from Dean’s hands, he can’t help but _hope_.


End file.
